


The Push.

by Queen of the Seven Hells (miranda90)



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Spiderling, Avengers Family, PTSD, Peter Needs a Hug, Peter Snaps, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve did it, Team Free Love, Training, but it's Tom Holland Spidey, flash backs, references other spiderman movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 22:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16585499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miranda90/pseuds/Queen%20of%20the%20Seven%20Hells
Summary: Steve pushed him too far and now Peter's had enough.





	The Push.

**Author's Note:**

> First thing I've written in a long while. 
> 
> I've had this story in my head for a while where Steve pushed Peter's buttons and Peter lays into him because he's done some pretty bad ass shit for such a young dude.

 

Natasha should have noticed the tremor in Peter’s hands, the twitch in his eyebrow and mouth. Her eyes were focused on the other side of the room where Wanda and Sam trained, throwing out critiques to either hero’s form or technique as they went.

 

Bucky regrets not noticing before. He’s known Peter for years now and should have noticed the silence during his workout. Don’t get him wrong, there was the typical early work out banter where he was still excited and full of energy, chattering on about school and his friends. Eventually, Bucky stopped listening to Peter’s nonsense comments and didn’t notice when they morphed to agitated grunts.

 

Tony should have stopped Steve. _He_ noticed that Peter was becoming twitchy, but chalked it up to the volume of everything going on; he had forgotten his noise canceling earbuds that day. By way of helping, Tony simply turned down the music in the gym a few notches and saw Peter’s shoulders relax minutely. He smiled and went back to watching Rhodey throw kicks at a punching bag with his thinner leg braces.

 

Clint could have stopped Steve, but he thought a little yelling was good for the boy, so he took out his hearing aids and kept working on his target practice.

 

Vision was deep in a conversation with Bruce and was too distracted to even assess what the possible outcome could be.

 

Steve didn’t read the situation, couldn’t see Peter’s face or the reaction to every comment he was shouting.

 

“Come on Peter! You can take more weight!” Peter’s nose twitched, and 100lbs were added to each side of the already half ton barbell.

 

“Harder Peter!  Don’t give up now!” Steve was going for encouraging and didn’t hear Peter’s light growl as he hefted another 50lbs on the bar.

 

The whistle of the arrows cutting through the air and the accompanying _thwack_ of them sinking into the target rang in Peter’s ears and his hands grew tighter and tighter on the bar with each chest press.

 

_That thing hasn’t even touched me yet._

_I wasn’t really trying to._

 

“Come on Peter! Put your powers to use! Put some grit into it.” The weight was becoming just a little too much for Peter now that the weight was over a ton. Steve wasn’t keeping track apparently, but Peter’s muscles were. He was struggling to lift the bar, quietly groaning under Steve’s encouragement for just one more, he could do just one more.

 

The weight was on Peter’s chest, his hands supporting it as he fought to lift the bar up, looking at Steve for help, pleading. His breathing too ragged to even form words, only mouth that he can’t do anymore.

 

_“Is someone out there!? Please help me! Help me please!”_

 

It was too much weight.

 

“Come on Pete, just get it up one more time! Put your back into it, come on Spidey!” Steve kept shouting at him, “You got this, come on! Use all your strength Pete, come on. Stop hiding behind the mask Pe-“

 

The whole room went silent as Steve’s last command was cut short with a bang that shook the building. The weight previously in Peter’s hands hit the ground across the room.

 

_The ground shook beneath his feet as the four pillars crumbled in unison. There was nothing but noise and weight and a kaleidoscope of light and then silence._

 

The room was completely still, the reverberating echo of Peter’s shout shooting through their beings. No one breathed, no one moved, everyone just started at Peter, sat up on the bench, gasping for the air he desperately needed to fill his lungs.

 

_There is **nothing**  like the silence that comes after a building collapses. There is nothing like the silence that fills the air when you are trapped under miles of cement and rebar and rubble._

 

 “I can’t take anymore! Don’t you get that!” Peter was shaking now, his shoulder slumped forward and his fists clenched where they sat on his knees. “I just can’t! I can’t do that again! I can’t!” His words came out in near hysterics, slamming his fist down on his knee in frustration. Peter kept trying to breathe, but he couldn’t.

 

_The beach was on fire, and it smelled like the Fourth of July. His mask was gone and it felt like the dust in his lungs was mixing with the sea air and becoming mud. Each breath sounding like a baby rattle in his chest._

 

Peter lifted his eyes to were Steve was standing over him with a slack jaw, his arms still crossed. The glare Steve received froze the blood in his veins. “I can’t lift more than that, don’t ever make me lift more than that again.” The words were hissed from between his teeth, soaked in venom.

 

Peter stood from the bench, everyone still staring from their places around the gym, “Couldn’t you see I couldn’t breathe! Didn’t you notice I was trapped? I may be super strong, but I have my limits! All you had to do was ask if you wanted to know! No more.”

 

_He could feel dust and dirt coat the inside of his lungs as the final pebbles fell and settled around him. The cement was seared into his ribs. Something was broken._

 

“Peter,” Bucky’s voice was soft, gentle as he set down the weight that was in his human hand.

 

“No!” Peter’s hand absently swung out at nothing. “I’m done! I’m sick of this! It’s all you guys have been doing for the last two years! You don’t think I don’t know!” Peter’s hands came up more at his sides as he took a step back towards the door.

 

This wasn’t Peter, Natasha observed, this is a cornered creature, angry, hurt and scared, ready to bite any hand that reached towards him.  Everyone was slowly starting to recover from the shock and slowly inched forward towards the Spiderling.

 

Peter’s guard was up, his hands at the ready. If Sam didn’t know any better, he would have guessed that Peter was blind to them and somewhere else.

 

“Under-roos, what are you talking about?” Tony’s voice cut through Peter’s consciousness. “We haven’t been testing you, you-“

 

_This is my chance to prove myself._

 

The anger that stormed Peter’s face when he whirled to meet Tony’s eye quieted him immediately. Tony didn’t see his kid anymore.

 

“You haven’t been testing me? Really?” Peter choked out a hysterical laugh, “Then what was this shit, huh? This wasn’t some mistake, this wasn’t some _accident_!” Peter was livid.

 

Peter was _screaming_.

 

“I’m sorry Peter, I went too far,” Steve’s voice rang out as he raised his voice slightly. “I wasn’t paying attention to the weight I was adding, I’m sorry if it was too-“

 

Peter’s laugh of disbelief was cruel. “Oh, this isn’t just about the weight. This is so much more than that. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard you made a crack about my mask, about my suit.”

 

_If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it._

 

Wanda’s eyebrows scrunched together and down as she stared at her best friend. How long has this been building in his head to explode into such a fury like this?

 

Clint crossed his arms, bow still in hand and hearing aids turned on to listen to the Spiderling’s speech. He noticed guilt wash over Tony’s face when Peter mentioned his suit before it disappeared.

 

“I know Scott wears a mask, but he needs his, he can’t shrink without his, so you don’t give him shit. But me! ME? You give me so much crap for it! I need my mask, do you understand? I’ve gotten people killed,” Peter pointed towards the windows and the city beyond them, looking at each of them, not really aware of what was spilling from his mouth. “I’ve ruined people’s lives!”

 

“We all have, Peter,” Natasha’s sober voice cut down the vehemence in his rant.

 

“But did you lose family because of what you do? Friends? Did you have to watch them die, knowing it was your fault? Because you were too slow? Too late? I wear my mask to protect what I have left in my life. God forbid I’m too slow to save someone when they get targeted because the villain knows who I am.” Unknown to him, Peter had tears streaming down his face and his shoulders were curling in on himself.

 

_When the sky is quiet and the stars are out and he’s swinging through the city, the click of his web slingers sounds so much like the snap of Gwen’s neck when he caught her._

 

Natasha was at a loss for words for the first time in a long time. What happened in this kid’s life, in the last three years, to make him know this pain? For him to feel responsible for that much death? Natasha has never seen Peter do more than disarm and incapacitate, contain and defend. 

 

_The blood was warm on his fingers, a discomforting contrast to the cold outside. Uncle Ben wasn’t supposed to be there. This wasn’t supposed to happen._

 

“I can understand that Peter,” Clint finally spoke up, wanting to stop Peter’s devolution into madness.

 

“But you don’t! None of you can understand what it feels like to be unwillingly saddled with these powers and have to learn about them as you go! To not be able to tell anyone or ask for help when you get stabbed and are terrified of bleeding out on the bathroom floor and struggle to stay awake while you stitch up your side. Imagine waking up the next morning and worrying about hiding the pain before realizing that you’re _completely healed_.” Peter’s breath was labored and his eyes were unfocused. His team members didn’t really know what to do or how to calm him down.

 

“None of you have ever had to worry about a friend coming for everyone you love because you killed his dad, even though his dad was the root of it all.” Vision was confused by Peter’s speech. He’s read the news often about Spiderman, but he cannot recall the incident Peter is talking about.

 

_The Goblin’s laugh echoes in his nightmares as much as the sound of the Vulture’s wings soaring around his head. The screams of his friends as the elevator falls through the Washington Monument is the worst._

 

“I could bet all of my Star Wars collection that none of you have **_EVER_**  been ignored and punished for trying to help and save people’s lives. Get reprimanded for holding a ferry together. After which,” Peter breathed out a disbelieving laugh and was blind to what his teammate’s were feeling, deaf to what they were trying to say. 

 

_He could feel more muscles around his body tear as he pulled. His scream of pain mingled with the screams around him._

 

“Have any of you ever felt like a bug that someone just tried to step on? Have you ever had 2 tons of architecture drop on your back? Bury you? Deplete the outside world from existence so all you know is pain and gray?” Peter’s eyes seemed to focus again as he looked around the room. “I had a building dropped on me damn it! I had to get out on my own and still follow that – _man_ ” Peter spat out the last word like it was soaked in poison.

 

“Have you ever had to steer a plane from the outside with rope? Did you know you all almost lost your equipment one night?” His team mates tensed and sucked the air from the room. “The Fourth of July has been ruined forever because a plane crash smells like sparklers? I could have let that man die! I should have let him burn to death in the fires the plane crash set on the beach. But I couldn’t let _that man_ die, even though he knew who I was. I wouldn’t let that man die even though he had done terrible things. I had to pull him from the fire, put him on the beach and contain him for the police. I had to heal on my own that night, still go back to school the next day even though I broke nearly everything in me.” Peter’s voice was rough, and slowly quieting as he got to the end of his rant.

 

Peter’s vision finally cleared up as he came back to his senses, and for the first time since he threw the weight, he could see his team mate’s expressions. The shock, pity, and horror he saw calmed the rest of the rage storming in his head and just upset him further.  He turned from his team and booked it for the door.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. Let me know if I should continue. I want some honest feed back here people. Give me your insight.


End file.
